


The Trouble with Teasing

by cardinalrachelieu



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Smut, aka the inner circle college au where cassian walks in on nesta masturbating, and they tease each other about it until they end up doin' it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:45:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9077110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinalrachelieu/pseuds/cardinalrachelieu
Summary: It was an accident.Truly.He’d been looking for Rhys. Or maybe it had been Azriel. He couldn't remember now. Either way, though, he definitely hadn’t been looking for her. Not once in his life had he actively sought her out. In fact, he spent most of his days trying to align his schedule so they never once had to see each other.This was probably just some karmic justice for the time she’d barged in on him—while he was still inside a girl—and proceeded to stand there and talk to him about a change in the way they’d be divvying up the set of monthly bills.Yeah, that’s definitely it.*EDIT: Added a section toward the end and increased the word count by about 1k*





	

**_TWO WEEKS AGO:_ **

“Nesta, I’m kinda busy right now,” he grunts between thrusts. The girl underneath him doesn’t seem to mind the intrusion—in fact, he thinks she’s moaning louder now… _kinky_ —and he isn’t about to interrupt their rhythm just because Nesta decided to pick the _worst possible moment_ to discuss the group’s monthly bills.

“It’ll just take a second.” She hadn’t even knocked before barging in, and Cassian’s sure she knew what she was walking into—Cressida, thus far, appeared to lack any form of control over her vocal chords. And now, standing in the room while his cock was sliding in and out of another woman, she isn’t even bothering to turn the other direction.

It’s a power-play, he realizes. He supposes it’s only fair, given that he’s been dodging her on the whole bill thing for nearly a week now.

He writes off the way he grows harder at her boldness to the fact that he’s currently _fucking another woman._ It’s a simple matter of wires getting crossed because there’s _no way_ he feels any sort of legitimate attraction toward _Nesta_ . Apart from the fact that she’s Rhys’s girlfriend’s older sister, she’s absolutely _intolerable._

He sighs, resigning himself to whatever lecture she’s prepared. “You’re not gonna leave this alone, are you?”

She steps farther into the room, keeping her eyes fixed on the paper in front of her. “So I looked at—I’m sorry, could you keep the moaning to a minimum for just a minute, miss… whoever?” Cassian rolls his eyes but removes his thumb from her clit, though he doesn’t let up with his hips. He’s not trying to make Nesta comfortable, but he also wants to get this over with as quickly as possible. Cressida’s noises die down and Nesta resumes her earlier message. “Thanks. Anyway, I looked at last month’s bills and—”

He tunes her out… mostly. Something about him paying for water and trash only from now on rather than chipping in a little bit for each of the bills separately. It’ll supposedly balance out, or at least that’s what Nesta claims. When she’s satisfied that he understands the new terms of the lease she walks out without an apology, though she at least closes the door behind her—probably for the others’ benefit more so than hers.

Cassian makes Cressida scream his name loud enough that he knows her cries reach Nesta’s room on the other side of the house. (He feels a mild—very mild—twinge of guilt in response to the dark circles shadowing Feyre’s and Mor’s eyes in the morning, but not enough to regret his choice.)

 

* * *

  

**_YESTERDAY:_ **

It was an accident.

Truly.

He’d been looking for Rhys. Or maybe it had been Azriel. He couldn't remember now. Either way, though, he definitely hadn’t been looking for _her_. Not once in his life had he actively sought _her_ out. In fact, he spent most of his days trying to align his schedule so they never once had to see each other.

This was probably just some karmic justice for the time she’d barged in on him—while he was still inside a girl—and proceeded to stand there and talk to him about a change in the way they’d be divvying up the set of monthly bills.

Yeah, that’s definitely it.

Regardless of why it happened, there’s no way he can unsee the image of Nesta with a _giant red dildo_ buried so deep inside her that only the grip was visible.

 _“Get the fuck out!”_ she’d shrieked, throwing a blanket over herself just as he snapped the door shut.

He’d backed away slowly, hand springing off the doorknob like it was a thousand degrees. Immediately, he’d begun trudging back across the big house, unsure of where he was going but knowing that he needed to be _somewhere_ else— _anywhere_ else. She finally catches up to him—a silky cream-colored robe haphazardly tied around herself—mid-way through the living room.

“What the _fuck_ , Cassian?” She has her arms wrapped around herself, pressing her breasts close to her chest. He tries not to think about what they looked like just a moment ago when there wasn’t a piece of fabric to hide them from view. “Did you forget how to knock?”

He can’t think, can’t form words. “I—”

“You breathe a word of this to anyone, and you’re dead.” The venom swirling behind her eyes is real, and he’s nervous that she might change her mind and just kill him now.

“I—”

“Stay the fuck out of my room,” she bites, turning on her heel and storming back to where she came from.

 

* * *

  

**_CURRENTLY:_ **

“Hey Feyre, what’s your favorite color?” He’s playing with fire, he knows, but it’s too tempting.

It had taken him the better part of an hour to find his composure again after walking in on Nesta, but he’d eventually sorted everything out. An ice cold shower always worked wonders for his mental state.

“Navy,” Feyre says cautiously, caught off guard by his random question. “Why?”

“Mine’s green.” Then, turning his attention to the other person hovering around the kitchen island, “How about you, Nesta?”

She chokes on her coffee and gives him a stare that should’ve melted him on the spot.

“Blue,” she grits, tightening her hold on her mug.

“Really?” Cassian prods, taking a good-sized bite out of the apple pinched between his fingers. “I thought it would be red.”

The rest of the world ceases to exist for several, long seconds while Nesta tries to summon some otherworldly power to smite him where he stands.

“What’s… going on?” Feyre asks carefully, gaze flicking between the two of them.

“Nothing,” they both reply, Cassian bright and innocent whereas Nesta is barely contained rage.

“Uh huh.” The skepticism in her voice is earned, though Cassian won’t validate it by explaining anything. After all, Nesta _had_ threatened to kill him should he mention what he’d seen yesterday, and he quite likes life currently. “I’m gonna go to class now. Please don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

“No promises,” Nesta grumbles, eyes still trained on Cassian and his _stupid_ grin.

The second the front door clicks shut she’s tearing into him, coffee mug forgotten on the other side of the counter. “What the _hell_ was that about?” She’s too close—entirely too close. He can smell her pomegranate-scented shampoo and can see the small flecks of gold hidden in the brilliant blue of her eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says innocently, taking another bite of his apple and dodging her gaze.

“Cut the _crap_ , Cassian.” She’s all fire and wrath—a force of nature. “Did you suffer a head injury in the past twenty-four hours? Was I not clear yesterday when I said I’d kill you if you said anything?”

“Oh, you were perfectly clear—” another bite “—which is why I was only asking you about your favorite color. Your birthday’s coming up, you know.”

“My birthday was last month,” she growls, baring her teeth.

“Right. And in eleven months you’ll have another one. Never hurts to be prepared.” Another bite.

“Just… don’t talk to me,” she decides, backing away and reaching for her cup of milky brown coffee. “At all.”

“You got it, Sweetheart.” The wink, he thinks a moment later, was probably unnecessary, but it’s become almost criminally easy to get a reaction out of Nesta.

“And _don’t_ call me sweetheart,” she spits, top lip turning up in a sneer. “ _Ever_.”

 

* * *

 

“So I heard you like riding things, Nesta.”

The room might freeze from the ice in her glare—the one she’s mastered in the recent days since Cassian caught her in the middle of her alone time.

Azriel’s eyebrows get lost somewhere at the top of his forehead and Mor angles her chin with newfound interest. Feyre’s the one to break the silence though. “ _‘Things’_? Nesta, what’s he talking about?”

“Nothing.” The word is short, clipped, though she manages to keep her voice even.

“Oh, you know. Bicycles, roller coasters, trains, di—”

“Horses,” she interrupts, and Cassian can’t help but smile at the small victory. “I’ve been,” she stumbles over the words, mind working to fill in the gaps, “taking dressage lessons recently.”

“Nesta,” Feyre says enthusiastically, “I had no id—”

“Not very many,” she rushes, and it doesn’t escape her attention the way Cassian’s hiding his laughter. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“That’s… neat,” Mor says, trying her best not to focus on the weird face Cassian’s making.

“I didn’t know you were interested in the sport,” Azriel chimes in.

“I’m not—it’s—I don’t think I’ll be doing it much longer.”

“That’s too bad,” Azriel says. “It really is a beautiful event.”

“Yeah,” Cassian adds, trying (and failing) to stifle his amusement. “It’s a thing to behold.”

“If you all will excuse me,” Nesta says sharply, glaring daggers at Cassian.

 

* * *

 

She yanks the curtain back, and Cassian nearly jumps out of his skin. “I think somewhere—”

“Holy _shit_ , Nesta!” He turns away from her, though it does little to shield his ass from her sight.

“—along the way we—”

“I’m taking a _shower_ , for Christ’s sake!”

“—had a misunderstanding.”

“Could we maybe talk about this later?” he rushes, exasperated. “Like when I’m wearing pants?”

“Now’s good for me,” she drones, disinterested in his protests. “As I was saying, I think—”

“Ohhh, I get it.” Finally the adrenaline stops driving his actions and he settles back into that familiar confidence he wears so well.

“Get what?”

“You’re trying to get even with me for seeing your—” his gaze trails down to where Nesta’s thighs meet.

“That’s not—”

“You could’ve just asked, Sweetheart.” He rolls his shoulders and turns to face her, hands relaxed at his sides. “I mean, this is twice now you’ve walked in on me unannounced.”

“This is diff—I didn’t—” she stammers, averting her eyes. “Could you turn back around?”

“Why?” A long, long time ago Cassian perfected the art of the smug grin, and Nesta currently finds herself in the middle of an exhibit. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

She sets her jaw and meets his challenging gaze. “Not at all. As I was saying, I think somewhere along the way we had a misunderstanding.”

“How so?”

“Well,” she takes a step closer, feeling the spray of warm water against her face, “for some reason you think it’s okay to make jokes about what you saw the other day when you barged into my room without knocking.”

“I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, determined to gain the upper hand. “You’ll have to remind me what that was, exactly. I’m drawing a blank.”

“Excuse me?” Genuine confusion, followed by irritation.

“What I saw the other day,” he clarifies, smirking. “Remind me.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll play.” Something shifts behind her eyes and Cassian instantly realizes his mistake. “You saw me filling myself with nine inches of a cock that wasn’t yours. And the best part wasn’t the ridges along the shaft that rubbed against my g-spot or the way it stretched my tight little pussy so perfectly. No, the best part was that it wasn’t attached to a person capable of finishing before I did, so I could ride it as hard and as long as I damn well pleased—until you interrupted me, that is.”

His heart plunges somewhere south of his ribcage, probably landing next to where his jaw is currently resting on the floor.

“In the future, Cassian,” she says sweetly, turning to leave, “don’t play games with me. You won’t win.”

He’s struggling to feel anything apart from the throbbing in his groin.

“Oh, and Cassian.” She pauses in her retreat, making sure to have his full attention when she intentionally drops her focal point to hip-level before dragging it back up to his eyes. “Mine’s bigger.”

He finishes the shower without using another drop of hot water.

 

* * *

  

“For your information,” he whispers harshly into her ear, crowding her against the counter and trapping her there by placing each palm flat on the granite on either side of her waist. The scent of pomegranate hits him like a train, and it’s an effort to maintain some level of composure. She continues stirring her morning cup of coffee, unfazed, distributing the creamer as evenly as she can manage, “what you saw earlier wasn’t an accurate size representation.”

“Whatever you say,” she hums, disinterested, bringing the mug to her lips to blow on the scalding liquid.

He reaches up and steals the cup from her grip, setting it down somewhere to their right before he spins her around, ready and willing to argue his point. And then he notices the flush in her cheeks and the faint, lazy smile softening her expression.

“Oh my god,” he says, disbelief coloring his tone as he puts the pieces together. “You got off this morning, didn’t you?”

“So what if I did?” Nesta quirks an eyebrow at him, daring him to push her on it further.

“Just out of curiosity, did you fuck yourself before or after seeing me naked?”

“That,” she says a little more sternly, reaching for her cup, “is none of your business.”

“Did it make you wet?” He’s walking a dangerous path, but she’s the one who took the first step down it. “Seeing me like that in the shower?”

The scoff she pushes out bruises something in him. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she says coldly.

“I—”

Mor’s yawn causes them to separate like oil and water, each leaning against different counters, facing different directions. “Good morning,” she says sleepily, walking directly to the half full carafe still sitting on the coffee maker.

 

* * *

  

That morning changes everything for Cassian, and suddenly it’s no longer about just teasing Nesta. Now he has an unrelenting itch—he _needs_ to know what she sounds like, what she tastes like, what she feels like when she comes. The thought burns through him like a wildfire, searing everything in its path until he’s fighting back a boner in the middle of Philosophy 394.

He rushes home and immediately barricades himself in his room, ignoring Azriel’s invitation for a pickup game of basketball with Rhys.

When he emerges half an hour later, he finds Nesta perched on one of the bar stools around the kitchen island, quietly nibbling on some assorted fruit while reading a sociology textbook.

“Feel better, champ?” she teases, not looking up from the words on the page.

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Did it make you horny?” she mocks, parroting his words from earlier that morning. “Hearing me talk about getting myself off in vivid detail?”

He half-heartedly makes what’s supposed to be a dismissive noise. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he repeats, but it sounds sad rather than annoyed.

Amren turns the corner and heads for the fridge. She keeps the oddest hours of them all, completing work for her dissertation that requires observing animals at night. Judging by her zombie-like movements, she’s likely just waking up.

Cassian pushes himself off the counter, walking away from Nesta without another word.

 

* * *

 

“Something the matter, Nesta?” he says, voice thick with childish amusement.

It’s Mor’s idea— _of course_ it’s Mor’s idea—to play a game of truth or dare while all of them (including Amren, for once) are out at this club with too-loud music and too-bright lights. And now they’re all waiting on Nesta to agree to the terms because, for reasons only Cassian understands, she’s the sole member of the group who doesn’t want to play.

“Nope,” she says defiantly. “All good.”

“Excellent!” Mor’s delight is infectious, and Cassian is already planning a great number of embarrassing dares for when it’s his turn. “In that case, you go first!”

Cassian feels the blood drain from his face when Mor hands over that power to Nesta. Any wicked plans he’d had about things he was going to get her to do—like dance on the bar or take a body shot off of Mor or do the worm in the middle of the dance floor—go out the window. Her lips curl up in a cruel smile as she sets her sights on him.

_Fuck._

“Cassian,” she begins sweetly, walking over to him and dragging a perfectly manicured nail over his broad chest, “truth or dare?”

He gulps and comes up with approximately eight and a half ways to get himself out of the club in the next minute that won’t result in his friends thinking he wimped out, but Nesta would know. And he doesn’t think he could ever live that down.

“Dare,” he says boldly, sure in all the ways he wants to be but can’t anymore whenever she’s around.

“I _dare_ you…” her grin turns feline and he’s never been more terrified in his entire life, “to do a strip tease in the middle of the dance floor.”

Rhys erupts in laughter and Cassian makes a note to slug him for it later. Mor’s eyes sparkle, pleased that her game is off to such a roaring start, and Elain blushes, tucking her face against Lucien. (Cassian doesn’t like the dude, but Elain seems smitten with him, so he’ll keep his thoughts to himself for one night.)

Cassian swallows the embarrassment and bares his teeth in a wide smile. “Is that all, Sweetheart? You know,” he shrugs off his jacket, laying it on the back of his chair as he stands, “the point is to make people do something outside of their comfort zone.”

“While loudly singing ‘I’m a Little Teapot,’” she amends, and he freezes in his tracks.

When he turns back around, Rhys is roaring with laughter, and even Azriel lets an amused huff slip out. He catalogues their betrayal, adding them to an invisible list of people he needs to repay over the course of this little game.

He’ll get her back for this, he vows. He’ll get all of them back for it.

Cassian dutifully performs the nursery rhyme while divesting himself of his shirt, shoes, and pants in the middle of the dimly-lit floor. (He doesn’t remove his boxers, but only because he doesn’t want to get them kicked out.) The entire gang cheers him on—even Amren—and by the end of it he’s simply exhausted rather than mortified.

Being the unfortunate target of her dare, Cassian earns the right to choose the next victim. Unsurprisingly, he picks her.

“Okay, Nesta, time to pay up,” he says, stepping his legs back into his trousers and doing up the clasp. “Truth or dare?” He doesn't bother with his shirt. It would get in the way, anyhow.

She stares him down, knowing she has only one option given the secret Cassian has in his arsenal. “Dare,” she grinds through clenched teeth.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He doesn’t feel bad about smirking, not when she’d just gotten him to make a giant fool of himself, practically ensuring he’d be going home alone tonight.

To her credit, she doesn’t shy away when he tells her she’ll be doing a body shot. But then he adds, “Off me,” and she blanches.

“Now it’s a party!” Mor squeals, running to get the tequila.

It’s not until the next morning that he sees the video Mor posted of him stripping away his dignity on Snapchat, followed by one of Nesta licking her way up his torso, and he’s not sure what’s worse: the hangover he can already feel forming at the base of his skull or the fact that he can’t stop thinking about the way Nesta’s mouth felt against his chest.

The trouble with teasing, Cassian discovers, is that sometimes it leads to actual pesky feelings.

He won’t admit to anything, of course—mostly because he knows she’ll eat him alive for daring to think of her in such an undignified manner—but he stops trying to deny the attraction he feels toward her, and, in a twist he never saw coming, he starts trying to impress her.

 

* * *

 

Her back thuds against the dresser and she lets out a sound that goes straight to his cock. Cassian reaches under the hem of her dress and yanks, and a scrap of sky blue lace falls to the floor around her feet. He’s got her legs around his waist a heartbeat later, mouth devoted to the small patch of skin between her collarbone and her throat—the spot, he’s learned, that sets her moaning if he uses his teeth just right.

If you'd told him a month ago that he'd currently be discovering the sounds Nesta makes when she's turned on, he'd have laughed until he was blue in the face. As it is, though...

He dips a hand between them and runs two fingers over her center. She’s slick and angles her hips toward his touch, and if he didn't have a hand firmly planted on the dresser, he might have ended up on the floor.

“Cass—” she breathes, and he decides right then that it’s the only word he cares to hear for the foreseeable future. “Fuck me.” He changes his mind about the limited vocabulary thing.

“All you had to do was ask, Sweetheart.”

He secures one arm behind her waist and the other under her thigh and turns, roughly guiding them both down onto his mattress and then hoisting her backward until her head is resting against the pillows.

Cassian wants nothing more than to bury himself inside her until his hips are pressed flush against her ass, but that’ll have to wait. He’s not about to rush this, and, besides, he’s been dying to know if Nesta tastes as sweet as the fruit she eats every morning.

In one smooth motion, he discards his shirt, and, before she can talk him out of it, he’s sprawled on his stomach and throwing her left leg over his shoulder. Reverently, he swipes his tongue over her, pressing it flat and going slow. She does, he notices—taste like fruit, like a mango harvested too soon.

She keens for him, back arching off the bed, and he’s determined to make her do it again. It takes him a minute to figure out what she likes, but then he finds a pattern that’s got her bucking. Surprisingly, it takes more strength than he anticipated to keep her hips in line with his mouth, but he manages to control her movements just enough so he can continue flicking his tongue against her.

When she comes, she goes completely silent—and then a deep gasp and her legs are shaking and her hands are buried in his hair and he can _feel_ her pulsing against his tongue. Curiosity gets the better of him and he slips two fingers inside of her, curling them until he finds _that spot_. It doesn’t take long, but she’s speaking in tongues and cursing his name during the ten seconds it takes for her to come again.

“Y’know,” he says softly, withdrawing his fingers and positioning himself over her, “if you need a break—”

“What part of ‘ _fuck me_ ’ didn’t you understand?” Weakly, she reaches for the clasp of his pants, and he lets her fumble for a moment—enjoying the brush of her fingers against his length—before helping her undo the button.

“So demanding.”

“Shut up and put your cock in me.”

“Such a dirty mouth,” he teases, turning his attention toward the dress that’s still covering Nesta’s upper half. He slides a hand under her and drags the zipper down until it stops at the base of her spine. She’s wiggling her arms out before he can manage to aid the process, though he does help her work it over her hips, tossing it onto the floor when its free of her body.

She shoves his pants down—boxers, too—before wrapping her hand around him, and he nearly blacks out at the contact.

The drawer with the condoms is too far away, so he flips them and the sight of Nesta straddling him is almost too much to bear. Dumbly, he grabs for one of the wrappers, praying he had the foresight to detach it from the rest of the strand. He’s rewarded a moment later, a single square of aluminum pinched between his fingers delicately, as though he might damage the contents. Nesta takes it from him and gently tears off one of the edges using her teeth before removing the latex within and, gingerly, rolling it down his hardened length.

“Do you remember the joke you made the other day?” she says calmly, slowly. “About my affinity for riding things?”

He groans and grits his teeth, stubbornly keeping his hips glued to the bed so as not to rush her even though that’s exactly what he wants to do. “Yes.”

She sinks down onto him, letting her hips spread wide as she leans forward until their chests are touching. A small, satisfied gasp escapes her as she adjusts to his size and he settles his palms on the lower part of her waist. “Well,” she breathes, beginning to move, and he’s sure he’s going to pass out from the pleasure, from the feel of her all around him, “you weren’t wrong.”

She rides him hard and fast and takes as much as she gives, coming twice more before her spine turns to jelly and she can’t sustain it any longer. Cassian picks up where she leaves off, holding her hips in place as he slams into her from underneath. His name becomes a prayer on her lips, a plea for release, and she finds it the moment he closes his mouth around her breast.

He follows shortly after her, movements stuttering to a halt as they take deep, heaving breaths.

The banging on the door startles them both equally, and the way Nesta’s walls contract around him in response to the surprise makes him moan.

“Hey, Cass, keep it down.” The dark smoothness in the timbre belongs to Rhys. “We’re all trying to sleep here—and I’m not going to bail you out this time when Nesta marches over here to yell at you.”

“Do I yell at you?” she mouths silently, indignation twisting her features.

He shrugs and she smacks him.

“Yeah, I, uh—” Cassian clears his throat and tries again, distracted by the way Nesta’s walls are _still_ fluttering around his cock. “Yeah, sorry. We’ll be quieter.”

They’re not quieter.

And breakfast the next morning is… interesting.

“Oh, I have _got_ to hear how this happened,” Mor demands, refusing to let either of them leave the table until they fess up.

(They don’t fess up. And it’s not until after ten that Mor finally relents and lets them go free. “I’m gonna get it out of you one of these days!” she promises, but Cassian isn’t holding his breath. Neither he nor Nesta are prepared to tell their friends the _actual_ story of why they fell into bed together.)

**Author's Note:**

> DON'T LOOK AT ME I AM ASHAMED OF MYSELF ENOUGH ALREADY I PROMISE
> 
> join me on [tumblr](http://yalenayardeen.tumblr.com) for more smut and sin


End file.
